The present invention relates to short take-off and landing (STOL) and/or vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft.
The present invention further relates to aircraft of the conventional type; that is, an aircraft having a central, longitudinally extending fuselage; an aircraft tail, including a rudder and elevator arranged at the rear end of the fuselage, for controlling the aircraft; and at least one wing arranged on each side of the fuselage for providing lift, due to the different speeds of the airstreams flowing over the upper surface and the lower surface, respectively, of the wing.
More specifically, the present invention is related to an winged aircraft of the conventional type, as described above, which includes some means for increasing the speed of the airstream flowing over the upper surface of each wing as compared to the speed of the airstream flowing over the lower surface of the wing. Such an increase in the speed of the airstream results in increased lift due to the well-known Bernoulli's Principle.
Various means and devices have been developed in the art for increasing the speed of the air that flows over the upper surface of an aircraft wing. A number of such devices are disclosed in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,461,811; 7,568,657; 7,607,606 and 7,654,486 to Karl Milde, Jr. Other such devices were developed by Willard R. Custer over a period of many years, culminating in an FAA-certified aircraft known as the “CCW-5 Custer Channel Wing Aircraft”. Elements of the design of the Custer Channel Wing Aircraft are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 2,437,684; 2,510,959; 2,532,482; 2,611,555; 2,691,494; 3,123,321 and 3,705,700.
Finally, it is known to inject air under pressure out of openings in either the leading edge, the trailing edge, or both, of an aircraft wing both to augment lift and to add a forward component of force. Such aircraft designs are taught in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,270,920; 2,523,938 and, most particularly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,117,995.
All of the aforementioned patent references, as well as the U.S. patent publication No. US 2010/0226749 A1, are incorporated herein by reference.